Gaunting Hounds
by Felisundae
Summary: Haunting Ground but with more chest hair.
1. Awakening

Finn Belli woke up very violently from a blurry dream involving glass and loud metal (the material, not the music), only to find that he'd been locked away in a cramped cage within the bowels of a musty basement cellar. He looked around, confused and dazed, not knowing where he was or why his head hurt so much—nor why he was almost completely naked, besides a flimsy silk sheet thrown on top of him, which was hardly sufficient cover for his gorgeous, aching body. He frowned very daintily as he gazed more fervently at his hideously dreary surroundings, noticing many assortments of knives, buckets and bloody tables; obviously, this was the cellar of a maniac. So, obviously, he had to explore it—but how? His cage was locked, and there would be no way to…wait, no. It isn't locked. The padlock had been left open and, using his eloquently long and delicate man-fingers, he was able to very softly/very forcefully pry it off and finally exit his iron imprisonment without so much as an alarm or a spontaneous act of human-combustion.

Standing up rather stiffly and managing to still have a completely perfect hairstyle, he wrapped the sheet around his waist (even he has standards) and made for the stairwell, intending to get out of the dark basement before his supple skin was permanently damaged from dust exposure—but, _hark_! What in all hell was that ghastly noise which hath just soiled his sensitive ears!? And lo, a lupine shape doth crouch and growl from beneath the table behind him, causing him much distress and over-reaction as it proceeded to leap gracefully over his cowering form and into the shadows from whence it surely came. Breathing heavily from his pitiful spasm, he looked at the ground around him and spotted a worn-out collar. He shakily picked it up and read the name engraved in silver upon it: "Hailey". What a beautiful name which undoubtedly didn't belong to that thing which had just tried to eat his legs. He decided Hailey was probably some other dog that the retreating chupacabra had eaten for dinner. Such a sad fate for such a lovely-sounding hound; he vowed to end that foul, dog-slaughtering, absconding beast's life if they should ever happen across each-other again, and very swiftly, indeed. Or, at least as swiftly as his weak, precious, mollycoddled arms could muster.

He got up slowly and carefully, still shaken from his fall and barely managing to keep the silken sheet from slipping all over the place. Giving the hellish room one final, brooding look, he turned on his heel and began to dramatically ascend the stairs while the shadows from above enveloped him with uncertainty. Where was he and where was he now going to? What godforsaken place was this and how will he ever possibly escape with his sanity and good-looks intact? _Stay tuned…_


	2. Trepidation

Finn wheezed his way up the stairs as his pampered and underdeveloped leg muscles valiantly tried to keep his feather-light frame aloft, every new step feeling like a mountain to cross—then, in the distance…light! _Finally_! After twenty four whole seconds of pain and fear and loose hair strands falling into his watery eyes, Finn took one last shaky step forward and emerged into open air.

He stood very still and blinked a couple of times, taking in his new gloomy (but not _as _gloomy as before) surroundings: large, ivy-covered stone walls towered on both sides of him and some straggly trees. Opposite him, he could see the beginnings of what appeared to be a courtyard peeking from behind the right wall's corner. Not enjoying the proximity of dead foliage and lurking mold spores, he decided to patter onwards, even when his bare feet wrinkled in revulsion as they made contact with the dirt on the ground. A crow that was perched on one of the dead trees' branches—unseen by Finn because he was concentrating too hard on walking in a continuous direction—became spooked by his ghostly paleness as he passed underneath it and flew away loudly with fright. This made Finn upset again, as it reminded him of the thing in the cellar, and he very nearly sat down next to the wall to calm his sky-rocketed blood pressure but a worm was in the soil there so he just kind of squatted instead.

This rest was very short-lived as his legs began to wobble only seconds after, so he just said "Blast it…" and went into the courtyard instead. An old castle now loomed before him, making him think of Harry Potter. There was even a big old tree there, too, except this one didn't move when he went near it. Beyond this there was a kind of fountain with…what, is that water? Was water supposed to be green? Finn didn't really know. He assumed water was always supposed to be _blue_, but, then again, his mother had once given him orange-coloured water to drink before. It had tasted delicious. Standing next to the fountain with a look of absent-minded fascination on his face, he seriously considered the idea of him drinking some of the water, just to see what flavour it was. Sadly, the thick bushes which surrounded the fountain proved too dense to wade through, and all he was able to get after all his hard work was a thorn stuck in his pinky toe.

Cold and miserable, Finn began to yearn for the comforts of civilization. How many hours—or days—had he been stuck here? How much time had passed since he had seen his parents? When was the last time he had eaten!? The horrible cruelty of it all descended upon his feeble psyche and he started blubbering again quietly, little diamonds falling from his long-lashed eyes and making dark spots on the exposed earth at his feet. Turning away from the fountain in complete anguish, through tear-clogged eyes he managed to see something he hadn't noticed before; was that…it couldn't be…ANOTHER STAIRCASE!? Oh, how the universe was punishing him. He couldn't even imagine having to climb up _another_ one of those things so soon with the last ascension's pains still fresh in his mind.

"_But stairs usually mean people,_" said a small voice of semi-reason deep inside of him. He stared blankly ahead, not really getting the statement's point.

"_What do PEOPLE mean, Finn?_" the voice added.

Finn thought very hard before he spoke: "…Food…?"

Yes. Yes, that sounded right. The thought of food instantly evaporating his woe and gave him new strength. He smiled for the first time since waking up.

"_Yes, good boy,_" the voice in him whispered, "_go up the stairs, Finn. Enter the castle. Soon…I will be free…._"

"Huh?"

"_What?_"

"What…what was that last pa—"

"_Nothing. Nothing at all. Just…just go._"

Finn heard a little "pop" in his head and the voice disappeared.


	3. Enter the Strange Door

_I apologize for the lengthy wait for this chapter and its similarity to the previous. I've had extreme writer's block, and I promise that I'll try to make the next chapters more satisfying and entertaining. _

* * *

Gathering the skirts of his sheet around him, Finn forced his tired legs to move on and up the mysterious stone steps which would (probably) lead to a place with more gloom and pain.

"And food," Finn muttered to himself, using it to make himself forget about the dark and the cold and the foot sores. He even forgot about the horrors of the cellar, and the ever-elusive chupacabra. He wondered if he'd find orange water in the new place. That would make this whole disaster worth it, he mused. Flower pots lined the top of the stair's banister, sprinkling Finn's journey with little bursts of colourful joy.

He got to the top in little time surprisingly, the happy thoughts of flowers and orange water completely invigorating his stick-like legs. He hardly took time to look around this outer floor of the castle however; for there, beyond more staircases (which didn't have flowers, making him sad again) was a blue square. The sight of this shape made him so excited that he ran up the remaining steps without complaint, the sound of his large bare feet slapping against the cold stone echoing like gun shots, which should have alerted any serial killer or bear within 1000 miles of the castle to Finn's presence immediately but didn't for some odd reason or another.

He stopped, breathing heavily, before the blue square—which was actually a rectangle—and just stared, too-baby-blue eyes wide and still damp from his earlier episode. What did he do now? He'd raced blindly towards this blue beacon of hope, throwing caution to the winds and exposing himself to attack, and now that he had reached it, he didn't know how to go on. In the back of his brain he knew that he had to do _something_, and that _something _would create a portal into the building for him. The blue rectangle was meant to help him create said portal, as he remembered his parents using others like it when he wanted to go outside or into a candy shop. If only they had taught him how to use one!

"_Think, Finn, think!_" he thought, his perpetually-raised eyebrows lowering a couple of millimetres to indicate concentration (while still making him look like a sad, lost deer), "_you have to…..to…turn…something…?_"

A noise bubbled into his head quite suddenly then, making him jump. He looked around in alarm, thinking someone had spoken to him. "H-hello?" he called out quietly.

It happened again but he didn't catch the words. He turned around in a small circle, tugging the sheet around his waist higher subconsciously, trying to home-in on the noise's source. "Hello? Is anyone there? I-I'm sorry for tr-trespassing…um, do you possibly h-have any ora—"

"_FINN!_"

Finn screamed.

"_Finn! Shut up! It's me. The voice from before. Remember?_"

Finn shut his mouth but still trembled with inner screams.

"_Now, listen to me carefully: it's a goddamn _DOOR. _Turn. The. Door. Handle."_

Finn, scared that the voice would yell at him again, turned back to the door quickly.

"Um…what's the ha—"

"_THE YELLOW THING!"_

Squeaking as the mysterious voice made his ears (brain?) ring painfully, Finn reached out and grabbed the yellow ball-thing attached to the door, twisted and pulled. Almost magically, the door swung outward. Gulping, Finn took a shuddering step over the threshold and entered the castle.


End file.
